FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT VIDEO POKER - PAGE 5

Mardi Gras' new Big Easy Poker Room is coming together. The idea is to have a more upscale location on the first floor, where players will have their own entrance and easy access to a full service liquor bar, video poker bar tops and their own dining area. They hope to open by mid-November, and will have 30 tables. Currently, the poker room is on the second floor, where there are no slots but there is betting on the dog races and simulcast races. The new room will include the the Bravo system from Genesis Gaming.

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is introducing Boomerang Bucks today, a promotion that helps ease the pain for new slots players who lose. The promotion is available only to new Player's Club members. As is the case at most casinos, Player's Club membership is free for those 21 and older who present a valid driver's license. The Hard Rock promotion gives gamblers a rebate of 50 percent on losses in their first 24 hours, up to $100. The casino will mail coupons, rounded to the nearest $5 increment, to players within a week after their initial visit.

With Super Bowl 30 only four days away, momentum and pressure are rising. And so is wagering on the game. The state's Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco said it is cracking down, starting with a bust on Tuesday at a Riviera Beach motel and bar. "This is a real big week for football, and we're going to be checking a lot of places - especially bars - for pools," Capt. Deborah Gray-Beck said. "There are more arrests to come." Three employees of Schooner's Inn on Broadway, including the manager and owner of the motel, were arrested on Tuesday afternoon after agents found them running an illegal operation.

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is introducing Boomerang Bucks Friday, a promotion that helps ease the pain for new slots players who happen to lose. The promotion is available only to new Player?s Club members. As is the case at most casinos, Player?s Club membership is free for those 21 and older who present a valid driver?s license. The Hard Rock promotion gives gamblers a rebate of 50 percent on losses in their first 24 hours, up to $100. The casino will mail coupons, rounded to the nearest $5 increment, to players within a week after their initial visit.

Floridians who let their guard down since voters approved a "no casinos" referendum almost five years ago should use a new federal study as ammunition against the unyielding expansion efforts of gaming companies, a prominent anti-gambling activist said on Tuesday. "You won and you all went home," Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, said at a luncheon meeting of the conservative James Madison Institute. "Pretty soon, you are fighting these assaults all over in a battle you thought you won in 1994."

Touching off an anticipated showdown between Florida and the federal government, the Interior Department announced new rules on Monday that could allow casinos on Indian reservations, and the state immediately sued to block them. The Interior Department created a mediation process for states such as Florida that cannot reach agreement with Indian tribes seeking to build casinos. But Gov. Jeb Bush and Attorney General Bob Butterworth accused Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt of an unconstitutional power grab, saying the mediation plan would allow Babbitt to circumvent the wishes of Florida's voters and elected officials.

Calder President and General Manager Tom O'Donnell addressed horsemen Thursday night for the start of Calder's 2009 racing season, which begins April 24. Included in his remarks: The race course plans to open a card room in the existing grandstand building in November. Groundbreaking for a new slots facility is expected in mid-May, with the idea of slots being available before the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl football fans come to Miami late in January. Miami-Dade County voters on Jan. 29, 2008, approved a referendum to allow slot machines limited to the existing horse and dog tracks and jai-alai frontons in Miami-Dade County, including Calder.

For sheer governmental chutzpah, hypocrisy and high-handedness, it would be hard to top the Missouri Legislature. Two years ago, Missouri's Supreme Court ruled that a state constitutional amendment would be needed to legalize "games of chance," like those usually found in casinos. Unfortunately for casino backers, state voters narrowly rejected such an amendment on April 5. Undaunted, sneaky pro-gambling state lawmakers pulled a major razzle-dazzle play: They simply rewrote the law to redefine casino roulette, video poker and craps as games of skill.

Posted by Nick Sortal on November 17, 2009 07:14 AM, November 17, 2009

Mardi Gras Gaming Center & Racetrack has moved its poker room down to the first floor. The cards began flying at 4 a.m. Friday, said Wil Herrera, director of poker operations. The 30 tables are at the north part of the building, with a distinct entrance for the poker players. The no-limit players have a nice area closer to the dog track; the limit games are pretty much on the other side, and automatic shufflers are in place at many tables. "Poker players know that a fast game is a happy game," Herrera said.

Buckle up for this unsettling forecast. The Dow, lately at a near-record 3,371, figures to drop about 17 percent to 2,800 by October before it resumes its bull run. That`s the decidedly minority view of star money manager Eugene Caldwell, 69, of $475 million Caldwell & Orkin in Atlanta (minimum ante: $10,000 if you invest via one of the three new no-load funds run by the firm; 800-237-7073). Caldwell has had a change of heart. Only last May, as you may recall, he recommended a nine-stock portfolio that subsequently gained 23 percent, vs. 4 percent for the Dow. He also urged readers to sell high-flying drug stocks, which have since plunged 21 percent as a group.